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Peter Sorgenfrei tells founders that culture isn't built through perks but emerges when you hire people whose values match your mission and then give them responsibility without micromanaging. Fire quickly if someone doesn't fit.
Peter Sorgenfrei tells founders that culture isn't built through perks but emerges when you hire people whose values match your mission and then give them responsibility without micromanaging. Fire quickly if someone doesn't fit.
Many CEOs and founders worry about company culture, and for good reason. Everybody wants to create a place, have a culture where people are happy to come to work and can do their best work. So how do you create company culture? The short answer is you don't. The short answer is culture is something that happens. When you put a group of people together, a certain environment under certain circumstances, and then out of that comes this magic thing which is called culture. It used to be that companies thought, well, you know, we need to install foosball tables and catered lunches and all the time off they can have and stuff. And while all those things are valuable and important and attract people to come work with you, That's not what creates culture. So I've tried to think about what are some of the things that do affect more directly the kind of culture you want to have. And the first thing is not going to surprise you. It's the people. It starts at hiring. It starts at making sure people that you get in the boat are the kinds of people that will help you and your colleagues build the kind of company you're all going to be super excited to go to work for and that you want to do anything and everything you can to make a success. So how do you find those? That's the secret sauce. And that's very hard. Anybody who tells you that they can teach you that, I would severely question because it comes with experience. It comes with a feeling. You know, I've hired North of 200 people in my career, and of course I've gotten it wrong a couple of times. But the thing that I've never been able to codify is what exactly made it so that I hired this person or that person. When I think about it, it's it's you know sitting in the room with them and getting a sense of where have they been, what have they done, how do they think, how do they treat? People around them? What are the values that they have? What is important to them? Where do they put the emphasis when we talk about the job? How would they fit in with the other people that I've already potentially hired? Those kind of things. So it's a bunch of variables that need to come together. But if you find them and they start working with you, then, or if you have people, then what can you do to instill a great company culture. One of the things that I found most effective is a culture of accountability. So not only giving people the responsibility to do certain things, but also holding them accountable. So if I have a team and I basically say to them, this is where we're going, I care less about how we're getting there, but I trust you and I believe that you will get us in the best way possible to our destination. And then I leave them alone. And the vast majority of time, people do a bang-up job, a better job than they would've done if I had micromanaged them. And along the way, they create victories, they have defeats, they work together across the company. They do what we need to do. They do what it takes to go to where we need to go. And they create a culture of collaboration, of respect, trust. They manage themselves better. They manage others better. And as a founder or CEO, I end up spending much less time worrying about managing and much more time focusing on leading the overall business and being something for my people on a personal level rather than as a manager. So company culture starts with getting the right people in the boat, essentially starts with then giving them whatever tools and opportunities that they need, give them a direction, and then get out of the way. And if you've done your hiring properly, and if you're sort of close to your people enough, you'll start to see that the culture hopefully will go in the direction that you want it to. And if it doesn't, then this may be for another video, another time. Making changes quickly is important, right? So we've all experienced having people on our teams that are not quite fit for the role that they're in. We of course should give them the opportunity to fix that if they can, or help them fix it. But if we can't, or if they can't, then we need to let them go. One of the biggest mistakes I see many founders make is they are too slow to make changes and Let people go when they need to. And it's a harsh topic to talk about because nobody likes to be fired. Nobody likes to do the firing, but it's the best for everybody involved. You're in the wrong seat. Somebody needs to make that change. It's either you or somebody else, and everybody will be better for it. Anyway, this video took a little bit of a side note. It was about company culture just to underline. It's not something you can design. It's something that you create the conditions for, and then it somehow magically emerges with the people that you brought on board. If you found this helpful, I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments. And as always, I can record additional videos on these topics if you want me to.
